PERHAPS a better ending to my last blog should have read “Aprés le Shambo, les shambles” - because nobody could have predicted that we were about to have another foot and mouth disease (FMD) fiasco.
It was almost exactly seven years ago that a consignment of phials containing deadly viruses was to leave the Porton Down Defence Establishment in Wiltshire for destinations unknown.
What is clear is that some of the FMD virus was delivered to a scientific research establishment near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Its subsequent escape into the wild was to be responsible for the last great FMD epidemic in 2001 (though there is a high probability that it actually started in the last months of the previous year, 2000).
The FMD virus
Seven years later, in 2007, we have another outbreak of FMD, but this time on a farm near Guildford in Surrey.
Living in this area are probably more stockbrokers than cattle and I do not see such people taking kindly to disinfecting their brollies as they depart on commuter trains up to the City every morning.
But there must be a word of congratulation to the new Prime Minister and the environment minister, Hilary Benn, for bringing about a rapid announcement as to the probable, or should we say the certain, source of this new infection as the Merial virus lab in Pirbright, about five miles from the affected farm.
This is a big change from the last outbreak when the government decided on a cover-up and did not make an announcement for about four months. Instead it stage-managed an outbreak at a pig farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall.
In those days, when I used to be a proper farmer, I did not wish to breach biosecurity rules because of my responsibility to other farmers at that time.
It was on a cold winter’s evening that I was to accidently bump into the true site of the source and then have a long journey home in the dark.
I had been tipped off by a journalist on a Christmas card who I had met on the earlier fuel protests. He told me what to look for, but he like me, was not prepared to name that institution.
We must be relieved that we have identified the source of the new infection so quickly.
Thankful too that this deadly virus does not live in hot temperatures, so the current hot summer temperatures in Surrey will do much to suppress the spread of this virus.
A word of warning though: this live virus might have being used in genetic engineering work for some purpose.
If they have accidently created a genetically manipulated virus which is more virulent than the original then we might be facing an uncertain future. But that is unlikely.
In 2001, the government of the day was not prepared to set up a public inquiry into a fiasco which probably cost more than £8billion.
What is surprising is that this new epidemic is probably a mirror image of that epidemic six years ago.
